Mechanisation of agriculture - Musée André Voulgre

The improvement of agricultural tools has been carried out progressively to lead to a systematic mechanisation and motorisation of practices.

In the 19th century, the modernisation of agricultural equipment first involved the improvement of farming tools based on local manufacture.

Then, after the First World War, agricultural machinery for outdoor use, working the soil, and indoor use, processing crops, diversified. Long and difficult agricultural tasks such as harvesting, haymaking, sanitary treatments, soil improvement and winnowing were mechanised due to a lack of labour after the Great War.

The motorisation of agriculture remained very expensive until the 1930s. There were only a few hundred tractors before 1940. The agricultural revolution towards commercial production that intensified after the Second World War led to even greater mechanisation and systematic motorisation from 1956 until the Dordogne became one of the most motorised departments in France in 1965.

Illustrations :

– Postcard of the village of Saint Louis en l’Isle with a pair of oxen harnessed to a mower around 1920. (Escarment Collection)

– Postcard of the village of Saint Michel de Double with the blacksmith’s workshop on the left and the mowers and other agricultural machinery being repaired around 1920. (Escarment collection)

– Advertisement for the Amouroux machines in the Petit Journal Agricole of 1925. (©Musée André Voulgre)

– Advertisement for the locomotives and hay and straw press of the Société Française in the Petit Journal Agricole of 1925 (©Musée André Voulgre).

– Video Le temps des machines by Pascal Magontier, 1986.